Linguistic Landscape in Promotion of Language Through Traffic Signboards: An Introduction to the Signs in Pakistani Roads and Highways

This present research is about how the linguistic landscape brings about the promotion of language and public awareness. The linguistic landscape is a sociolinguistic phenomenon that is used for the promotion of language and culture as well. Linguistic landscape can be seen everywhere in the society as in advertisement billboards, traffic signboards, public awareness messages on the signboards, buildings, shopping centers, airports, etc. This study covers the dimension of traffic signboards and how they are consciously or unconsciously are promoting the language in Pakistan, especially the Urdu, the National language of Pakistan, English, the international language, the Mandarin, the language of China, and the Sign language. Two hundred and ten traffic signboards are selected for the completion of this research. The data collected from the traffic signboards of the motorways, highways of all the provinces of Pakistan. The purposive sampling technique is used for this study. This study will disclose how traffic signboards are promoting the language written over them, whether written or sing language. The data was analyzed through observation with the pictures of traffic signboards. The present study is qualitative in nature, so the data is analyzed and interpreted in the description form.